Bob Down:I suppose it's better than living under a box in a rat-infested subway or under a bridge.

THIS

The problem with the "improving working standards" is that they have a cost. Give workers in Shenzen the conditions that western workers get, and each iPhone will cost more. Apple might find somewhere else cheaper to make their phones, and then what do you think the Foxconn workers will do then? Well, they'll probably become peasant farmers, which is what they're trying to escape from.

China is going through what we went through in the late 19th century/early 20th century and what South Korea went through in the 1950s. These working standards are only really bad by our standards. My grandfather would have had worse ones than this.

Ultimately, if someone will do the job cheaper than you will, you'll be finding yourself another job.

But, we have THE BEST healthcare system in the world if you're quite wealthy.

It's true. I'm a physician, and the amount of waste in the system is insane. Despite the "miracle" of electronic records, most systems don't talk to each other. If you get labs at one hospital and go to another two days later, you stand a good chance of getting them all again, even labs that make no sense to repeat.

It is fast heading that way, though. I work for a hospital network in Indiana, we are 5 months away from having all of our hospitals (14) live on Epic. We are working with IHIE as well, and there are systems coming down in the next year or so that will enable the patients and physicians anywhere here in indiana,. to be able to access the patients chart.

the last 2 years have been so the hardest work and most satisfying i've ever done in IT. I can't sit here and say that EMR is a miracle, but it defiintely improves effeciency. The biggest problem we have right now is the split between the docs that embrace it, and the ones that push back at learning how to use it.

The reason they have those working conditions is because we don't, anymore. Our lazy working conditions result in much higher prices, which is offset by outsourcing. You can't have everything. Reality just doesn't work that way. Water runs downhill, and cheaper labor replaces more expensive labor. That's just how things are.

Evil Twin Skippy:HindiDiscoMonster: Serious question... is there any reason why the US government can't require workplace regulations to be met in order for a company to sell their product here in the USA?

Answer: Because most parts of the world that buy the things we make have a stricter standard than we do. If we tried to enforce that law, Europe would use that as a justification for slapping a tarrif on our airplanes, cars, and implements of destruction.

In Europe what passes for "health care" in the United States is considered an anachronism on par with the workhouses of Dickens or the flogging of sailors in "Mutiny on the Bounty." The crippling debt we crush students leaving college under is as distasteful as the Feudal system of the middle ages.

ChubbyTiger:At its best, our medical/hospital system is significantly better than any other country's. On average for all citizens, not so much. Similarly, our university system is generally great, but we've got some issues there, too.

That's my point. If the only metric is "the rich get awesome shiat", then we have awesome healthcare and the best university system in the world. All you need is hundreds of thousands of dollars for experimental technology and $50,000/year for school.

HindiDiscoMonster:Serious question... is there any reason why the US government can't require workplace regulations to be met in order for a company to sell their product here in the USA?

Result: you raise the price of goods to consumers. Consumers find themselves with less disposable income.

It's electoral suicide.

People can blame Foxconn, Walmart or whoever else. It's consumers who buy this stuff. In the case of laptops, I don't think they were given much choice, but in many other areas, they just buy cheap Chinese stuff.

Slaxl:Obviously he's exaggerating, I assume for effect, but you don't have the best health care system in the world, and no, god knows we don't here either.

Yes we do, and whether or not he was exaggerating I don't doubt he thinks we have a lousy health care system. We have an excellent health care system. The university comments just sealed the deal... Wah, student debt... Considering how good our system is? Right.

bulldg4life:I'm impressed that you are here beating the drum on Saturday mornings too.

Here's a tip, the United States has loads of problems and there's plenty we are not "number one" at, particularly primary education. We've also managed to drop from 1 to 7 in 'competitiveness', but that doesn't change the facts... We have the best healthcare. We have the best university system. Period.

gothelder:The apple devices should come with a tour of the plant where they were manufactured. Sort along the same vein where the townspeople living near the concentration camps during World War II were "encouraged" to visit them in order to reveal to them what was going on in their back yard.

Full functionality on the apple devices would not be achieved until a quiz was taken and passed on the documentary.

Be careful when you are preaching from a place so high and mighty. I'm assuming you feel you can make such restrictions since you don't own any apple products. Good for you.

Of course, Foxconn is pretty much the single biggest private employer in china and they have a laundry list of clients that has included: amazon, cisco, dell, Motorola, Samsung, HP, Microsoft, Nintendo, Nokia, toshiba, Sony, and Visio.

Now, if you are somehow able to say that you don't use any products from the above companies, I'd be impressed. But you'd also be lying.

This is not to absolve Foxconn or Apple. The conditions are horrible and they should be improved. But, it is quite dishonest to single out apple and it is quite ignorant to not realize that everything from shoes to computers (of every company) uses cheap labor in other countries. That's why shiat is so cheap and middle America can afford it.

Now, if you would like to expand your crusade to try and educate Americans on the horrible labor factories that produce their cheap products, fine. If you'd like to continue to prattle on about how you are superior to Apple idevice owners, you'll probably need a different topic.

HindiDiscoMonster:Serious question... is there any reason why the US government can't require workplace regulations to be met in order for a company to sell their product here in the USA?

Answer: Because most parts of the world that buy the things we make have a stricter standard than we do. If we tried to enforce that law, Europe would use that as a justification for slapping a tarrif on our airplanes, cars, and implements of destruction.

In Europe what passes for "health care" in the United States is considered an anachronism on par with the workhouses of Dickens or the flogging of sailors in "Mutiny on the Bounty." The crippling debt we crush students leaving college under is as distasteful as the Feudal system of the middle ages.

gothelder:The apple devices should come with a tour of the plant where they were manufactured. Sort along the same vein where the townspeople living near the concentration camps during World War II were "encouraged" to visit them in order to reveal to them what was going on in their back yard.

Full functionality on the apple devices would not be achieved until a quiz was taken and passed on the documentary.

And where do you think the parts for your computer came from? No, really. Look inside your computer. It doesn't matter which brand. And the parts that come from other Chinese manufactures come with the same, and sometimes even worse, worker suffering attached to them.

The problem isn't Foxconn. The problem is China and American companies farming their manufacturing business to the cheapest supplier of labor, regardless of the cost to American jobs or the conditions of the foreign laborers lives.

And is it any wonder why they are moving to assemble products with robots? Think about it, there are only so many suckers to be had, even in China. Sooner or later the Foxcons of the the world are going to simply run out of human capital, either by law or by a lack of recruitment. (Even prison labor wouldn't be able to satisfy their demand.)

So the next big phase of industrialization is robots. We were already there in the 80s, but in the 90s the sudden opening of the third world with their lack of any regulation at all managed to take us briefly back to the 1920s.

The side-trip to the third world did accomplish one thing: We will now be fawning over these firms for bringing skilled jobs back to our fine shores.

Gawd, the world really is like one of those Medieval world simulations where the only way to win is to starve your peasants for two years, and feed them in the third.